WLANs have proliferated within residential and commercial environments, as have the capabilities of devices that operate in the WLANs. In these environments, it has become important to be able to determine the location of a WLAN device. The communication protocol used by the overwhelming majority of WLANs in the IEEE 802.11 communication protocol, known by the brand WiFi™.
One category of location techniques using information derived from the time of arrival (TOA) or time difference of arrival (TDOA) of signals transmitted by a device whose location is to be determined. However, the existing waveforms defined by the existing rules of the IEEE 802.11 communication protocols (i.e., 802.11a, OFDM variations of 802.11g, 802.11n) do not allow for highly accurate or easily calculated TOA or TDOA location computations using data derived from signals transmitted by one device and received by one or more other devices. There are other types of waveforms that are better suited for TOA or TDOA location techniques, but those waveforms are outside the rules or definitions of the existing IEEE 802.11 communication protocols.